A Shared Reprieve
by paradoxmachine
Summary: Ianto and Toshiko realize that sometimes "getting away" means "going across the street." [Tosh&Ianto, Oneshot, Post-Greeks, Not shippy.]


Setting: Post-Greeks Bearing Gifts

* * *

Ianto Jones sat on the couch inside the hub, an old filing cabinet pulled up to his right, a laptop on his left, and dozens of files spread out over the table. Toshiko Sato sat at her desk, head bowed, typing dutifully as ever. Working. Both of them, working. Sometimes it felt like they were the only ones who did. Jack and Owen were out on a cursory Weevil sweep, Gwen was out with her boyfriend, and the two diligent drones were still here, working away.

Toshiko's fingers quivered as she typed, fighting to stay focused on her programming. She was writing a script that would automatically log any camera feeds near rift spikes, and then parse through and discard any obviously useless data. It was a simple program really, busy work, but she wanted to fine tune it to get as much of the junk footage as possible out of the way, without accidentally cutting anything they might need.

She could have been at home parsing Netflix instead, but if her hands weren't busy then her mind slipped off and she was thinking again instead of watching. Thinking about Mary, and about the world, and how pointless all of this was, anyway. She couldn't sit away and rot like that. She had to be helping in some way, instead of wallowing in unproductive misery. And so she worked, and worked, but occasionally her fingers slipped and a jumble of meaningless keystrokes betrayed her.

Ianto's eyes moved with quiet efficiency over reports written by people dead by decades. They weren't important reports, but any physical archive that didn't yet have a digital parallel was time wasted to any other member of the team. Transferring text was exactly the sort of menial job he needed to fall back on, on the bad days. It was entirely about staying focused. Ianto Jones had no leeway for typos, a fact that he was proud of. To a search program, there was a big difference between a "Carrinite" and a "Carri_o_nite."

They both hit "enter" at the exact same time, and shared that same moment of a completed thought.

Tosh glanced up as Ianto stood to get coffee.

"Would you like…" Ianto started, about to offer her one, but he hesitated. He wasn't sure if Tosh even realized what a mess she was. Her hair was dirty, her clothes _really _didn't match, and she looked like she was about to fall right out of her seat. It was the same exhaustion Ianto had grown so familiar with, a heaviness. Stress and grief, overworked and underslept. She was pushing herself because the only other option was to stop. To stop everything. Stop moving. Stop breathing. Stop _thinking_.

"-to come with me for lunch?" Ianto said instead.

Toshiko gave him a startled look, dark eyes going wide.

"A friend lunch," Ianto said quickly. "You look… tired."

He bit his lip, just a little. Tired wasn't the word for it. Ravaged. Ruined. Almost empty.

"I'm actually… compiling a new code," Tosh said sheepishly.

"I know what 'compiling' code means," Ianto said, raising an eyebrow. "I think you need to get away."

Tosh sighed quietly, and then folded. She sighed again and stood up, pushed in her chair, and straightened her skirt with both hands. Ianto gathered up the folders and wrote out a sticky note to mark his place, and then lead the way out the front entrance.

It was a sunny day in Cardiff bay. Which actually meant overcast with some dark clouds on the horizon, but with a few strips of sunshine fading in occasionally as the clouds shifted.

"So, I don't usually 'go out' for lunch," Tosh said awkwardly, shifting in a long jacket that was at least two sizes too big.

"Neither do I," said Ianto, squinting at the nearby buildings.

"Where do we… go?"

A list immediately formed in Ianto's head of every restaurant within walking distance. He narrowed it down to only the middle-range, nothing too cheap or fastfood-y, but nowhere you'd bring a girl for a third date.

They settled on a little café, where Tosh ordered a red-onion salad, and Ianto ordered a burger. Ianto didn't spend a lot of time thinking about food.

They ate silently, because neither of them were the type to start a conversation.

"Um," said Tosh, finally, "So how was your… weekend?"

He'd spent it with Jack, actually, but he was never going to talk about that. They hadn't done anything. It was all talking, and Jack being Jack, but Ianto was getting the feeling that "just Jack being Jack" wasn't going to be an excuse for very much longer.

"Uneventful," said Ianto. "I assume yours was much the same?"

Tosh had gone to a bar. Gone to a bar, didn't even drink, just sat there for hours and avoided eye contact and felt _sick_. She'd thought she wanted the noise because the silence was suffocating, but it had just been walking into voices again. All those voices, all those thoughts, screaming. So many people, and all she'd done was pray that none of them would try to talk to her.

"Quiet," she said. "I finished a novel I was reading, but I'd been fighting through it the entire time, so the ending was more relief than excitement."

"I'd kill for some relief," Ianto mumbled softly.

Toshiko's face grew sullen. She frowned.

"I really wish I could help you," she said.

Ianto looked thoughtful, leaning over his empty plate with a napkin clenched loosely in his hands.

"I think," he said slowly, "I might have found something that's helping, but it's… It's not something I've ever considered doing before. It's crazy."

"Freestyle rock climbing?" Toshiko offered, tilting her head.

"Something like that," Ianto said with a brief smile. "There's definitely the fear of falling. I just feel like… I don't _want _to stop hurting. Not for a second. Like it would be _wrong_. Like it would be a betrayal."

"Moving on isn't giving up," Toshiko said, setting down her fork gingerly. "It isn't forgetting, it's just… living."

"I can't just keep living after…" Ianto closed his eyes and pursed his lips. "I shouldn't be talking about this. It isn't your problem."

"It's what we _do, _Ianto," Tosh said encouragingly. She reached out and touched his hand. Ianto had to fight not to pull away. _Just trying to help_, he thought. "People- human-kind, we're made to react to change. We adapt. We keep going."

"What about you?" said Ianto. "Are you moving on?"

"I only knew her for a few of days. It isn't the same thing," Toshiko insisted.

"The rest of it, though," said Ianto. "Are you moving on?"

Tosh was quiet for a long moment. Slowly though, she nodded.

"There's far too many beautiful things out there to fixate only on the ugly ones," she said, with a small smile.

Ianto sighed. He glanced out the window, up at the overcast sky. Up at the tiny slivers of blue swirled among the dank grey.

"That's a nice way to think about it."

Ianto wondered if Jack really was one of those things, or if he was just floundering about for anything to cling on to.

"I think," said Toshiko. She waited until he looked up and met her eyes. "You should go for it. Whatever this thing is, if it's helping, you're going to regret letting it slip away."

Ianto nodded and rose to his feet. They paid for their meals and left the building, each of them feeling fractionally lighter than they had going in. With the briefest of smiles, Ianto offered Toshiko his hand, and they walked back toward the hub.


End file.
